The present invention relates to a method for finishing wood products and, more specifically, to a method of finishing furniture being manufactured at a location remote from a location where the finish for the furniture is designed.
Conventionally, a finish for a wood product, such as furniture, is designed at, or in a location proximate to, a location where the wood product is to be manufactured. Typically, a wood product designer, in conjunction with a finish specialist, designs the wood finish. The finish specialist then creates a finishing schedule to produce the wood finish and typically prepares a color standard or guide panel having the final wood finish. The finishing schedule and guide panel are then physically transported to the manufacturing location (if they aren't already located there) where they are used to produce the finish for the manufactured wood product. The coatings and other wood treatments that are used to prepare the finishing schedule and the guide panel are also used to create the finish on the wood product.
In recent years, there has been a move toward globalization, wherein goods are manufactured at locations remote from where the goods are designed. For example, many wood product companies in the U.S. have headquarters and design facilities in the Southeast U.S., but their wood products are manufactured in other countries, such as China. This large separation in distance between design facilities and manufacturing facilities make it more difficult to accurately replicate a wood finish design on a manufactured wood product. For example, it is costly and time consuming to ship guide panels and other finishing information over great distances.
The present invention is directed to a method that will decrease the cost and increase the speed of replicating a wood finish design on a manufactured wood product, especially when the design of the wood finish and the manufacture of the wood product are separated by a great distance. The present invention utilizes the Internet and electronic mail (email).
The Internet is a worldwide decentralized network of computer networks that permits computers to communicate with each other. The computer networks comprising the Internet are run by various organizations, including corporations, universities and government agencies and work together in a democratic, loosely organized alliance. Networks may be connected together by dedicated telephone lines, fiber optic cables, high speed DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) connections, special ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) telephone lines, or by satellite. Information is transmitted over the Internet in packets. More specifically, information is broken into small packets, sent over many different routes at the same time, and then reassembled at the receiving end. Two protocols are responsible for this breaking, routing and reassembling of information: the Internet Protocol (IP), which routes the packets of information, and the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which breaks the information into packets and recombines them on the computer that receives the information. In order for a personal computer to take full advantage of the Internet, the computer must have special software that understands and interprets the Internet's TCP/IP protocols. This software is referred to as a socket or a TCP/IP stack.
In 1989, a new type of information system known as the World-Wide-Web (“the Web”) was introduced to the Internet. The architecture of the Web follows a conventional client-server model. The terms “client” and “server” are used to refer to a computer's general role as a requester of data (the client) or provider of data (the server). Web clients and Web servers communicate using a protocol called “HyperText Transfer Protocol” (HTTP). A browser is an exemplary Web client for use in requesting Web pages and files from Web servers. A Web server waits for a Web client, such as a browser, to open a connection and to request a specific Web page or application. The Web server then sends a copy of the requested item to the Web client, closes the connection with the Web client, and waits for the next connection. HTTP allows a browser to request a specific item, which a Web server then returns and the browser renders. To ensure that browsers and Web servers can communicate unambiguously, HTTP defines the exact format of requests (HTTP requests) sent from a browser to a Web server as well as the format of responses (HTTP responses) that a Web server returns to a browser. Commercially available browsers include, but are not limited to, Netscape Navigator (America Online, Inc., Dulles, Va.) and Internet Explorer (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.). Browsers typically provide a graphical user interface for retrieving and viewing Web pages, applications, and other resources served by Web servers.
Email is used to send electronic messages from one computer to another over the Internet. An email message is made up of binary data, usually in the ASCII text format. An email message is sent in the same way as most Internet data. The TCP protocol breaks an email message into packets and the IP protocol delivers the packets to the receiving computer. The TCP protocol then reassembles the message so that it can be read at the receiving computer. Files other than ASCII text files, i.e., binary files may be attached to an email message. Since the Internet isn't able to directly handle a binary file in email, the binary file must first be encoded in one of a variety of encoding schemes. Common schemes include MIME and uuencode. The receiving computer that receives an email with an attached binary file (called an attachment) must decode the attachment with the same scheme that was used to encode the attachment. Most conventional email software packages do this automatically.
One type of file that is widely used for email attachments is a portable document format (PDF) file developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. PDF is a universal file format that preserves all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and color of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. A PDF file is either a 7-bit ASCII file or more preferably a binary file. PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended using reader software, such as Adobe® Acrobat® Reader® software, which is commercially available from Adobe Systems free of charge. Any type of document can be converted to PDF using conversion software such as Adobes Acrobat® 5.0 software available from Adobe Systems. Files in PDF format conventionally end with a “.pdf” extension.
Image files, such as those in tagged image file format (TIFF) are often converted to PDF files for subsequent transmittal over the Internet by email. TIFF is one of the most widely supported file formats for storing bit-mapped images on personal computers (both PCs and Macintosh computers). TIFF graphics can be any resolution, and they can be black and white, gray-scaled, or color. Files in TIFF format conventionally end with a “.tif” extension.